Strategy

Analysis - I meet with you to understand your brand, your audience, your needs. I source data across a wide swath of relevant areas, conduct stakeholder interviews, and complete audits to analyze what you have. I supplement where necessary. Then I go strategically wild.

Not really. The whole point of strategy is that it's not wild. It's careful, considered, and, if done correctly, wicked smart.

From Brand Strategy to Platform - Brand is a microcosm of strategic opportunity. The positioning, vision, personality, and essence are our first stops on the journey, and serve as our touchstones throughout all branding efforts. From there we develop a creative brief for each expression. And away we go!

Building blocks:

brand architecture

market research

brand platform

marketing theme development

advertising and media strategy and creative briefs

naming taxonomy

Editing

Philosophy - A fresh pair of eyes helps every writer, and my editing offerings will reassure you that you're putting your best words forward. I hold the reader's interests in the center of my editorial target and work with your tone rather than reframing your message in my own words

Choose Your Own Adventure - You choose how much help you want: copyediting, where I correct your grammar and offer suggestions to strengthen your language; or substantive editing where I look at your overall structure, tone, and conclusions to offer a strategy for making not just your writing but your thinking better.

Thrilled clients - I’m an experienced editor who has focused an entire career on seeing copy through a reader’s eyes, giving feedback, and making writing better. For a glimpse into how I’ve been realigning, fixing, massaging, wordsmithing, improving, connecting, and smoothing authors’ writing, see the recent examples page.

Projects polished:

business plans

articles

style guides

sales decks

positioning statements

mission statements

blog posts

brand books

brand voice primers

bibiliographies

creative briefs

web sites

packaging copy

taglines

grant proposals

reports

white papers

manuscripts, particularly fiction, nonfiction, and academic texts

Brand naming

Philosophy - A brand name is the pithy condensation of your brand's core, and it has to sound, look, and feel right. The best path follows from establishing a clear strategy, locking oneself into a closet for unfettered creative improvisation, then bringing the strategy back into the room for a consult. Create, pare, repeat.

Euphony - Your name has to sound right. No labiodental fricatives for your warm, fuzzy brand, okay? No open, back vowels for your edgy, speedy technology. Say it aloud. No Rural Juror, please.

Credibility - They have to believe you. No pretending to be something you're not.

Sustainability - Let's make sure your name today allows space for who you will be tomorrow.

Legal and Cultural Searches - I handle preliminary searches, then can manage the full legal, trademark, common law, and cultural disaster searches.

Solutions Crafted:

naming strategy

name candidates

nomenclature

presentation copy

brand platforms

ad campaigns

Thingamabobs Named:

products

companies

books

films

widgets

and ideas

(No, seriously. For an annual technology conference back in the beginning of this millennium, I named ideas. Doesn’t get more name-y than that, folks.)

Writing

Philosophy - Writing functions best when it's crafted for a specific audience. Keep the reader in mind from information architecture to font, and they'll absorb and retain more of what they read.

Topics - I can make your customers crave your message on any topic, from industrial material sciences to food products.

Thrilled clients - You may know what you want to say but not how to say it. It’s often better to hire a consultant than to have staff write what they're used to hearing at meetings. Clients call me for specific writing projects or put me on retainer to do all their advertising, web updates, blog posts, and collateral. See the recent examples page for a glimpse into client engagements.